


Over Our Heads

by Las



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-17
Updated: 2012-05-17
Packaged: 2017-11-05 12:52:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/406588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Las/pseuds/Las
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starts after 'You Can't Handle the Truth' and continues from there. "Lisa wasn't really praying. She was just exhausted and lonely, and she didn't really believe anyone was listening."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Over Our Heads

**Author's Note:**

> For Lui. Happy birthday, darling!

The thing is, she's tired. Lisa feels the ache straight to her heart so that even though she spent the day watching everything she TiVo'd, twice, her body feels like it's gone through the wringer and she's halfway through a bottle of Merlot. This is everything she don't know how to explain to the guy who just appeared in her living room - poof! out of thin air - looking as every bit as wary as she feels.

"You called?" Castiel asks, and Lisa knows it's him because who else can it be? She recognizes him from Dean's stories - the coat, the voice, the stiff way he holds himself. She had imagined him with glasses. It occurs to her that in a different timeline, she might've grabbed the floor lamp and tried to whack him over the head with it, but now she just sighs and rubs her eyes. An angel in a trenchcoat in her living room is not the strangest thing that has happened to her, and she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Lisa wasn't really praying. She was just exhausted and lonely, and she didn't really believe anyone was listening. "I didn't think you'd actually show," she mutters.

"You should know that most of the things you ask for, I can't grant." He looks very sorry about this, like she might rebuke him for his lack of omnipotence.

"What  _can_  you grant?" Is she coming across as insolent? She doesn't really care, but thinks that Sister Mary Frances from seventh grade must be rolling in her grave right now.

"Just the last thing," he answers.

"Which part?"

"The part about keeping him safe." Castiel shifts hesitantly. "'Happy' is proving difficult."

Lisa doesn't know what makes her say the next thing. Partly she's tipsy, but partly she's been telling herself "just one drink" then "just one more" and she should probably follow through on that and stop taking a page out of Dean's book. Plus, she has a guest, and didn't her lola tell her to always feed your guests, make them feel at home?

"You want some coffee?" she asks.

To her surprise, he says yes.

*

 _Okay, well, Castiel, he said you're back these days so if you're out there, you keep an eye on him for me because I can't anymore and I don't want to_  - and here her heart twinged because although she can't forgive what Dean did, she still misses him, and she wonders if this makes her a bad mother -   _so it might as well be you. You watch over him; I hear you're good at that. Keep him alive, keep him well, keep him happy, and- just... just take care of him._

_Amen, I guess._

_*_

There is an angel sitting at her kitchen table with a mug of coffee between his hands, and he is telling her about the first time he ever tried coffee.

"It was shortly after Sam released the devil from his cage," Castiel says, matter-of-fact.

"Is that what that was?" Lisa asks mildly. All the parts of the story Dean left untold start to fall into place.

"We were on our way to Maine to capture my brother-"

"The devil?"

"No, Raphael."

"Like the ninja turtle?"

"What is this ninja turtle?" Castiel demands. "Why do people keep saying that? He's not a turtle, or a ninja. He's an angel and we're at war."

Lisa bites her lip to keep from giggling. "Never mind. Go on, continue."

They stopped at a diner just off of I-95, where Dean ordered himself a burger and Coke and - despite Castiel's insistence that he does not eat - ordered Castiel a coffee.

"He said I was one of them now, so I had to eat like one of them, but I wasn't." Castiel frowns at the memory. "I'm not. Angels don't eat," as if Lisa didn't hear him the first time.

"Did you like the coffee?"

"No. It was terrible." Castiel raises the mug. The cartoon guy on its side is saying, 'I'm going nucking futs!' It was a gift from Ben for Dean on his birthday. Dean loved it. "But this coffee is very good."

Lisa smiles. "It's Sumatran. I have simple tastes but coffee is where I like to spoil myself."

Hanging out with an angel is only strange if she forces herself to think about it. As it is, she is glad for the distraction from her own problems. Sure, she could've gotten this comfort from any of her friends if she had bothered to call them, but she was busy being angry and depressed about a break-up, so maybe next time, guys. It was Castiel who decided to answer a half-assed drunken prayer, and Lisa is caught up in her coffee and his stories about Dean that it doesn't occur to her to wonder why he would, why he's here, why now, until the following exchange happens:

"What's heaven like?" she asks.

"Right now," Castiel says, "it's like hell."

*

Lisa dreams of Dean that night.

He's cooking dinner in the kitchen and she's in the living room watching TV. He hollers asking where the salt is. Lisa yells back that it's in the cupboard.

"Which cupboard?"

"The one over the microwave!"

But Dean keeps opening the wrong one, and she keeps yelling, "The microwave, check over the microwave," and he keeps saying it's not there. Lisa doesn't get up to help him look. The two of them just keep yelling and yelling.

Dean pokes his head out the kitchen. He looks young, golden around the edges. It's the Dean she met twelve years ago, who smiled more easily and told entertaining lies instead of keeping silent. He frowns and asks, "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

It's her alarm. The dream melts away. Lisa drags herself to the bathroom and gives herself a few seconds to contemplate going back to bed. That would be nice. It would be so nice.

She turns on the shower.

*

"How is he?" Lisa asks. This time she is not drunk, and she has two mugs of coffee ready and waiting.

"He's a little on edge these days," Castiel says, taking the 'nucking futs' one. "Last I heard, he had a run-in with some fairies. They're notoriously cruel."

"Fairies?"

"Yes."

Sure, why not? 

"Do hunters tend to run into a lot of fairies in their line of work?" she asks.

"It depends on where they run."

Lisa sips her coffee. "What about Sam? Is he doing okay?"

"He seems to be doing well." Castiel hesitates. "In his way."

"And how are you?"

Castiel looks up, surprised by the question, and then his expression flattens into something attempting neutrality. Has she said something wrong? Maybe she shouldn't ask him at all; maybe he doesn't like it. After all, Castiel didn't answer Dean's prayers all year, and she knows now that's what they were, prayers or what passes for them, ever since Castiel responded to her own directed drunken ache. 

"I'm good," says Castiel, and tries to smile.

*

When Lisa's first girlfriend dumped her in college, her roommate said, "Braeden, you drink this gin and go make some mistakes, you deserve it." The only mistake she made was opting to lock herself in her bedroom all night while listening to the Williams Brothers' "Can't Cry Hard Enough" on a loop. The memory pokes at her now as she listens to Castiel relay personal anecdotes about people who died thousands of years ago. She's thinking about how it would feel to wrap her body around him.

God, she is cruelly lonely. 

 _You're not thinking straight, Lisa. You need to go out with the girls this weekend and get laid_.

Okay, maybe, but Castiel is here now with his long fingers and his deep voice and his air of having one foot in another world. She is distantly aware that he probably spends most of his time killing his brethren in some terrible war, but he is unassuming and complacent when he is with her, and it lulls her into contentment. Dean made him sound aloof and intractable, but Castiel answers her questions about the prophets with such flippant wryness that she can't help but be charmed. 

"I think Job was Sister Mary Frances's favorite," Lisa muses. "I always felt bad for the guy, though."

"Don't feel bad for him," Castiel says, pointing his empty mug at her like an oratory tool, "or for any prophet. It's distasteful to pity them for their suffering when it's what makes them what they are."

"Yes, but not all prophets are martyrs." She takes the mug from him and refills it. "And surely not all martyrs are prophets."

"It's how they ascend."

"Who? The martyrs or the prophets?"

"Thank you," he says when Lisa hands him back the mug, then he answers, "The chosen."

When he says he must go, Lisa gives him a hug. He stiffens in her arms and doesn't hug back until she tells him too. He does so, gingerly, as if he is afraid he might do something wrong. She stays there in his awkward arms for a while, missing this. Castiel smells like the rain on distant shores, but his stubble reminds her of Dean on lazy weekends. She wants to turn her head and kiss Castiel's neck. She wants someone to hold.

"Take care," Lisa says when she lets him go.

He says, "Yes," and vanishes.

*

It's potatoes and salisbury steak for dinner, and after Lisa finishes grilling Ben on his biology project, Ben asks, "So you and Castiel are friends now?"

She counts it as a victory that she did not just spit out a mouthful of food. "What? How do you know about Castiel?"

He shrugs. "I saw him with Dean once."

"You what?"

"So I asked Dean about him."

"When?"

"Like, last year." Ben shovels beef into his mouth and talks with his mouth full, and she is too distraced to reprimand him. "A few weeks after Dean started living with us. I went into the garage 'cause I was gonna grab my bike, and he was talking to him."

Lisa wipes her mouth with a napkin. "Then what happened?"

"I don't know. Dean told me to go back inside." Ben raises his eyebrows at her. "So you're friends with him now? I saw you guys talking in the kitchen last week."

Oh, god. "What were Dean and Castiel talking about?"

He shrugs. "I don't know. They both looked pissed about it though."

"Ben, why didn't you say anything?"

"Say what?"

She throws up her hands. "I don't know, that Dean's talking to angels in the garage?"

"Dean asked me not to."

Lisa swallows, then she cuts her salisbury steak into neat squares, letting the pause stretch on. She doesn't know what to think, except that Dean has such strange and intricate secrets.

Ben asks, "So you and Castiel-"

"Yes, we're friends."

"Cool."

*

Castiel doesn't always come when she prays, but he never shows up of his own volition. Except now.

"Are you okay?" Lisa asks, because he doesn't look okay. This is more agitated than she's ever seen him, and suddenly the possible disasters she hasn't been thinking about come back with a vengeance: is the devil back? Did Castiel lose the war? Did Dean die? Are they all going to die?

"I'm fine," Castiel snaps, and Lisa's suddenly relieved that Ben's out biking. He won't be back for a while.

She starts to put the coffee on but Castiel goes straight to the cupboard where Dean kept the whiskey, that half-empty bottle she keeps meaning to throw out, and how does Castiel even know it's there?

"It's one in the afternoon," she points out.

"It's five o'clock in London," Castiel says as he pours into a glass. "Cheers."

"What's going on?"

He smiles mirthlessly. "I think it's what you would call... a bad day at work. Or a good day, maybe. I don't know. Good damage control, at least. Maybe."

Lisa doesn't tell him he's making her nervous, but she tells him to have a seat. So he sits. She sits adjacent to him and he lets her take his hand.

"The last time I had to kill that many creatures who weren't my enemy-" he begins, and then maybe he sees the look on her face because he stops. He sighs, and Lisa strokes her thumb over his wrist. Finally Castiel says, "Meg was right."

"Who's Meg?"

"A demon."

Lisa raises an eyebrow. "A demon named Meg?"

"I met her two years ago when the devil trapped me in holy fire."

Okay, she's gotten used to a lot of weird stuff, but it's still pretty weird being friends with people who say shit like that.

"I ran into her again on that bender I was telling you about. After the Winchesters died and came back to life."

"Yeah, I remember." So weird.

"Meg said you should be ready for your chosen cause to change who you are as you serve it." Castiel mulls the next words over. "She said if you truly serve it, you'd want it to change you. You'd want it to make you better."

"Are you changing?" she asks tentatively.

He looks sad, and sick of this. "I think everything changes."

Lisa think about Dean and the scars he no longer has. She thinks about conversations kept from her, stories untold, the holes filled in by an angel at war. Sam's cold eyes, and how Ben spends more time by himself these days. Her bed feels too big. Her house feels empty, and there are so many things she wants that she can't have.

"The question," Castiel says, a sardonic curve to the corner of his mouth, "is whether I'm better."

Her heart is pounding and she hopes it doesn't show. She brings Castiel's hand to her lips and kisses it. "I'm sure you're on your way."

That hits a nerve. Castiel looks chastised  for no reason she can discern, but it emboldens her to smooth the hair back from his forehead. He closes his eyes at her touch.

He says, "I can see why Dean likes you."

Lisa says, "Let's not talk about Dean," and then she kisses him.

*

She's heard the story about the time Dean took Castiel to a brothel, so she expects awkwardness and fumbling and general cluelessness, but what she gets is nothing of the sort. Castiel touches her like someone familiar with his own desires, and Lisa feels a flash of pity for the angel who knows how to fuck, but not how to hug. 

It's been a long time since Maine.

"Harder," she hisses, and he takes direction well. She's on her back as Castiel ruts between her legs, and she angles her hips and follows through. God, she's needed this. "Sit up."

He does, immediately, pulling her with him like she weighs nothing at all. When she sinks down on him, Castiel exhales shakily and she is hit with the sudden desire to hear him moan, to make him fall apart with it. He is silent in bed, as controlled and committed as he appeared when she first met him.

"I'm going to fuck you slow," she whispers in his ear.

"Yes," he breathes.

Years of yoga have given her tight control over her body, the strength to maneuver it, and the discipline to wield such strength. The snap of her hips is precise, and her kiss is hungry, claiming. He hungers back just as much, tangling his fingers in her hair. Lisa wonders who taught him how to fuck. If she's going to hell for debauching an angel, she won't be the only one.

"Tell me what you want," she says against his jaw.

"I-"

"Do you want this?"

Castiel gasps.

"Or... this?"

He mewls into her skin, so she does it again, and again, and again.

"I want-" he says.

"Tell me."

"This," he rasps. "I want - don't stop."

She has no plans to.

"Don't stop."

Castiel lets her have her way. He is a rock; she can do anything. Lisa fucks him until she comes, moaning her release, undone and wild with it. Castiel clutches her tightly as he fucks her up and down his cock, effortless, chasing the aftershocks. They wash over her body in slow waves.

He licks the sweat along her collarbone, and Lisa can tell he's close. She takes charge again, shifting the weight on her knees. Castiel's hands slide to her hips, and she begins to fuck him hard and slow until he says, "Yes," gasps it into her mouth as she goes faster, " _Yes_."

She clenches around him and he cries out.

The world goes white, almost blinding. She closes her eyes, but she sees the afterimages of two bright swoops of light curving up from Castiel's shoulders, and feels the light consume her, frightening and euphoric all at once. Castiel digs his fingers into her hips and they were so hot, she would swear they burned her. But later, after Castiel returns to the battlefield and she is cleaning up in the bathroom, she sees no burn marks. There is no sign of anything angelic on her body except a fragile brightness in her heart, which didn't quite fade when the light did. It just settled inside her like a secret, and in Castiel's eyes when he looked at her, in the warmth of his mouth when he kissed her again.

*

Castiel doesn't come over for coffee anymore.

It's not that Lisa isn't disappointed, but she isn't surprised and she isn't sad. Or at least, she isn't sadder. She likes to be pragmatic about these things. For a while, she worried that Ben might ask about Castiel again, but he never does and she doesn't know whether she should be relieved or worried about that. Ben doesn't talk much, period.

"He kind of pops in and out whenever he wants," she remembers Dean saying to her once. "Like a cat."

She had laughed at that. "Angels are like cats?"

"They hiss and scratch and want you to scratch their heads, and when you're looking for them, they're off fucking around somewhere else."

He sounded bitter when he said it, but then again Dean is not very good at letting things - or people - go.

Lisa empties the whiskey bottle in the sink and puts it out for recycling. After debating it with herself for half an hour, she deletes Dean from her phone.

She hopes he's okay, that they're both okay.

"Do I what?" echoes her date. They're at the new Japanese restaurant that just opened downtown. Jenna's been trying to set her up with this guy since the break-up, so what the hell, right? Besides, he's kind of cute, and he's a doctor. "Is this a trick question?"

His name is Matt. He doesn't like coffee, and doesn't have stories about heavenly war or chosen martyrs. 

"No, it's not." Lisa swallows her sashimi and says again, "Do you think a cause you commit to should change you?"

To his credit, Matt thinks about it. She likes that about him, that he thinks and doesn't dismiss.

She helps herself to another piece of sushi.

"Then maybe it's not really change," Matt says. "Maybe that part of you has always been there. It just needed a reason to come out." He teases, "Why, are you committing to a change-worthy cause?" 

Lisa hears a rustling sound and looks up, but it's just the wind in the trees outside.

"No," she replies, and smiles at him. "No, I'm just the kind of person who's trying to get by."

Matt smiles back. "Aren't we all?"

"I'll drink to that."

So they do.


End file.
